Domaine Anna - Best Restaurant in Flic en Flac, Mauritius!

The "Best Restaurant" tag doesn't come from me - it comes from Domaine Anna's ranking over on the TripAdvisor website. Personally I haven't eaten at enough places here to judge, but I can say that it's one of the best restaurants I've had the pleasure of eating at here in Mauritius.

Domaine Anna is located in Flic en Flac, near the Western coast of Mauritius. It's not exactly at the beach area, but about a ~2km drive away, so you'd need a car (or a taxi). The entrance is nice and supremely inviting.


The restaurants is actually pretty huge. There's something like 3 or 4 dining areas. Most of the dining areas are indoors ...


... but some of them are in little huts beside/on top of a small lake. Not sure if it's a natural or man-made one, though.


Just a quick detour - in practically every restaurant we've eaten at, there's this green chili paste. I don't know what else is in the chili but it's quite a bit sour, a little salty, and very spicy.


Back to the food - bread with butter. We're served with just plain french bread, which isn't half bad - french bread over here is a lot fluffier, and with a more crispy (and less 'hard') crust than the ones back in Malaysia. Couldn't hurt to have a tad bit more variety, though :).


Domaine Anna's kitchen is staffed predominantly by Chinese chefs, so the items on the menu are very Chinese in nature. We start off with Coquilles St. Jacques gratinées (Scallops gratin style, 250 Rs). Filled with some sort of creamy, cheesy sauce and topped off with breadcrumbs, these are DELICIOUS. So good that we had to order a second helping.


The Calamar fondant (Crispy calamari, 150 Rs) was fresh and nicely battered and fried. Crispy without being oily or chewy, was pretty good as well.


In comparison, the Fondant de poulet persillé (Crispy Chicken with Parsley, 125 Rs) was a bit of a let-down, as the chicken was a bit dry and bland.


On to the main courses, then! Ivan, being a die-hard beef guy, has a Steak de boeuf nature (Steak "au naturel," 500 Rs). I think he ordered medium, and yet the steak turned out a bit towards medium well, so I guess Mauritius is certainly not the place to be for steak lovers.


Pauline's choice: the Rôti d'agneau au feu de bois, sauce forestière (Wood fired roast lamb with forestière sauce, 350 Rs). Which is, essentially, a fancy name for mushroom sauce, ha ha.


The darling decides on Lobster, since it seems pretty cheap on the menu at 750 Rs per 500gms.


Our lack of experience in choosing lobster proves to be our undoing though, as this monster, Langouste grilée au beurre d'ail, flambée au whisky (Lobster, grilled with garlic butter and flambé with whisky), comes up to a whopping 1,850 Rs. Looking at the size of the lobster and the amount of meat inside I don't feel 'cheated,' but I do think that the waiter could have let us know the exact weight of the lobster he showed us before cooking it up. Ah well, live and learn!


The Noix de St. Jacques - Spécialité du Chef (Scallops - Chef's special, 450 Rs) turns out to be the chinese "葱姜" (spring onion & ginger) style. Pretty good dish, although I was expecting/hoping for something more 'elaborate.' You know, being 'chef's special' and all.


Moving on - more seafood! Crevettes géantes sautées au beurre d'ail et vin blanc (King Prawns, sautéed in garlic butter and white wine, 450 Rs) - the prawns are big, and the sauce is delicious - most importantly of course is that the prawns were also extremely fresh! Peeling them out of their shells was literally a 10-second job.


And finally, the last main course is the Camarons grillés sauce barbecue - flambés au rhum (Grilled camarons with barbecue sauce - flambé with rum, 500 Rs). Maybe it's just me, but I'd never heard of a 'camaron' before this. And I've never seen such huge prawns! The picture doesn't do it justice - the head is a full two inches in diameter!


To cap off the night, we share a Peach Melba sundae. I'll go out on a limb here and say that Desserts are not a strong suit of the restaurant - they don't even have a desserts menu! This sundae was way too sweet - was OK the first few mouthfuls but after that it just started feeling a bit too much.


Now before I sign off on this blogpost, I have to comment a bit on the service. We've been there twice - the first time everything was great. The second time was a bit rubbish, though. We had to ask for bread, and ask three times for butter after that. Food also took over an hour to arrive after ordering. While the staff were friendly, a smile doesn't help with the rumbling in the stomach when waiting for food.

Other than that, this is certainly one of my favorite restaurants in Mauritius - nice ambience, good food, and very reasonable price, too. Domaine Anna is open for lunch and dinner from Tuesdays to Sundays (closed on Mondays). The place is pretty full on weekends, so make sure you make a reservation - phone number is +230 453 9650.